I, for one, am happy for the kid. I was a socially awkward spelling prodigy too, and none of my public school teachers saw fit to enter me in any spelling bees. I think it's awesome that his mother believed in him and encouraged him and that he had the opportunity to win. Some of us never get acknowledged for our strengths, especially when we have glaringly obvious weaknesses that are easier for others to focus on.

Now I'm average and ordinary in every way, and maybe Evan will be too someday.

Pleiotropy comes from the Greek πλείων pleion, meaning "more", and τρέπειν trepein, meaning "to turn, to convert". It designates the occurrence of a single gene affecting multiple traits, and is a hugely important concept in evolutionary biology.

I'm a postdoc at UC Santa Barbara.

All Many aspects of evolution interest me, but my research focus is currently on microbial evolution, adaptive radiation, speciation, fitness landscapes, epistasis, and the influence of genetic architecture on adaptation and speciation.